i-Tree Landscape

Overview

i-Tree Landscape is a cornerstone of the exciting updates and features included in the i-Tree 2016 Suite.
Landscape builds on the success of tools like i-Tree Design and i-Tree Canopy by serving up sophisticated Forest Service
science in an accessible, web-based platform. i-Tree Landscape is preloaded with land cover data and US Census demographics.
Users simply need to select their areas of interest to begin exploring and creating engaging maps and graphs that
capture how people and trees interact. Select the Get Started button to work with the Landscape application or continue reading
to learn more.

Why i-Tree Landscape Matters

Engaging Visuals

Maps can convey a wealth of information that can be easily understood by target audiences. Traditionally, the expertise
and cost necessary to create informative maps place them out of reach of many managers, planners, and tree advocates.
i-Tree Landscape removes these barriers so that communities of all sizes, or anyone interested in maximizing the potential of
our urban forests will be able to create maps and summaries to convey information for more effective urban forest management and advocacy efforts.

Quick & Simple

Landscape is not designed to replace other assessment tools, but augments them by allowing users to quickly show where the tree canopy is, estimate the
services trees provide, and prioritize stewardship efforts based on US Census demographic data. In less than ten minutes, a user can
identify locations of interest and begin to explore the challenges and opportunities facing their urban forest. These outputs can
help justify further assessment projects or natural resource management actions such as undertaking an i-Tree Eco assessment or a more
detailed urban tree canopy (UTC) analysis.

An "All Lands" Approach

Landscape will allow for planning that extends beyond public spaces and truly encompasses all lands including urban and rural forests. Landscape
relies on remotely sensed data that covers the entire United States. This includes the backyards, commercial landscapes,
corporate campuses, and other private ownerships that makeup the majority of the urban forest that falls outside the scope
of typical public tree management agencies. This supports an “all lands” approach to capturing the services trees provide
regardless of where they have their roots.

What Information Does Landscape Provide?

Whether you are interested in exploring how to optimize tree planting in your community or
want to understand the spatial distribution of tree and impervious cover, i-Tree Landscape can provide
helpful information including the following:

Ecosystem Service Estimates

Based on tree and impervious cover data, along with other local data,
Landscape provides first order ecosystem service estimates and values for:

Carbon storage and annual sequestration

Air pollution removal with values influenced by the number of people impacted

Prioritization

Different communities have different priorities and i-Tree Landscape can create tree planting priority maps
that consider the current distributions of trees, people and available space. The following priorities can
be weighted and combined to best meet community needs:

Tree cover per capita

Tree stocking, or the amount of available plantable space

Population density

Population density of minorities

Percent of population living below the poverty line

How Can i-Tree Landscape Help Me?

There are many creative ways that Landscape can help you. Landscape will make it easier than ever to introduce new
audiences, decision makers, or elected officials to the benefits and values that trees provide your community.
Some key questions i-Tree Landscape can help you answer:

See how your tree canopy impacts people
- i-Tree Landscape will create maps to help you understand where
the trees are, where the people are, and how the two interact.

Plant trees where they can do the most good
- i-Tree Landscape’s top down approach integrates land cover with demographic data and allows you to map areas in greatest
need of increased canopy using priorities that you determine.

Gain more support for managing land use change and maintaining tree cover
- i-Tree Landscape will put a dollar value on the services that your urban forest is supplying, providing assessments of
what is lost when canopy cover is reduced.

Empower allies to engage new audiences
- Having a powerful but easy to use tool with compelling visual outputs can build capacity. Now, with
i-Tree Landscape, all types of allies can help build support for the important work of managing our urban forests.

Assess the trees beyond parks and streets
- The majority of our urban forest canopy is typically on private property: over
residential lawns, on commercial properties, or corporate campuses to name just a few. i-Tree Landscape assesses
the whole urban forest allowing for real “all lands” planning that doesn’t stop at the sidewalk.

Easily demonstrate the importance of tree canopy for traditional and new audiences
- With i-Tree Landscape, you can share outputs that speak to conditions where people live and work. i-Tree Landscape
is user-friendly, so you can share the tool and allow key audiences to begin to explore their urban forest for themselves.

Who will benefit from i-Tree Landscape?

Planners
– A top down view is important for this group along with the ability to spatially link canopy and benefits
with demographic information. For planners, maps are a key tool and Landscape will provide a bridge to make
sure trees are a key part of planning efforts.

Sustainability Groups
– Sustainability groups tend to have an “All Lands” approach and work on multiple scales. Landscape can help foster a better
understanding of how efforts are working across scales. As an accessible advocacy and educational tool, i-Tree landscape is useful for
engaging decision makers and alike.

Private Companies
– i-Tree Landscape illustrates value of trees to a community wherever they happen to be planted. Landscape can be used to focus company
sustainability programs where they can be most effective.

Tree Care Professionals
– Private consultants can also use Landscape to capture the value of their work and highlight the need for their services. This could
include projects that range from more sophisticated tree canopy assessments to work that is focused on increasing and maintaining existing forest canopy.

Preservation Groups
– i-Tree Landscape can identify the largest pockets of intact canopy that are most important to a community. Landscape can also show how
targeting the most important existing canopy for protection can help maintain significant benefits while longer term efforts to increase canopy take effect.

Educators
– Landscape offers a great entry point for students from middle school science classes to college level planning courses to begin considering the
benefits of trees and the importance of the distribution of the forest. The integration of US Census demographics allows for exploration of the sophisticated interactions between
people and the environment in a simple and novel way not available anywhere else.

Other Allies
– Landscape empowers allies with an easy and accessible tool to increase their effectiveness.

What’s next?

High Resolution Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Integration- i-Tree Landscape utilizes canopy cover data from the 2011 National Land Cover Database. Locations where
2011 NLCD imagery are not available will default to use 2001 data. New high resolution urban tree canopy datasets are being added to the platform as they become available.
Higher resolution UTC data will make it possible to discern individual trees and facilitate more precise analyses and prioritizations where that data is available.

Canopy Change Scenario Modeling- Scenario modeling is another new feature that is currently under development and will appear in early updates to
i-Tree Landscape. With this feature, it will be possible to project the effects of increases or decreases in canopy cover, further focusing planning efforts and gaining support
for comprehensive management of the urban forest. As with all i-Tree tools, users should expect continuous improvement and know that your feedback and suggestions help us
make tools that are truly useful.